


Sole Survivor Alternate Beginning

by AzulaLavellan



Series: The Raven Herald [2]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Inquisitor is a badass from the beggining, Inquisitor was in Kirkwall, but no one recognizes her, hinted eventual Inquisitor/Cullen Rutherford, im bad at tagging
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-06
Updated: 2018-01-06
Packaged: 2019-03-01 02:23:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,084
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13284939
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AzulaLavellan/pseuds/AzulaLavellan
Summary: One shot depicting an alternate beginning of Sole Survivor that asks the question, what if they had restrained Aasha with chain shackles? lets just say they were smart to have not done that.





	Sole Survivor Alternate Beginning

Aasha woke with her face against the hard earth. Running her hands along the rocky, moist surface she could smell a sweet, moldy, almost rotten scent wafting around her in a gentle but chill breeze. Leveraging herself up she opened her eyes to look around. Through her stinging eyes she saw a twilight world shrouded in the green swirling mist, with floating black precipices and cliffs, crowned with a foreboding yet distant, dark city. The sounds of alien creatures and monsters came to her ears causing a panicked knot to form in her stomach. She pressed it down and ignored its presence, not allowing the fear to cloud her mind. She let a lifetime of training and experience take over. She knew she needed to find a rise, get the lay of the land around her and figure out just where she is. Water and food as well as something for a shelter and fire would be good but there seemed to be a distinct lack of wood here. Turning to look behind her she saw a woman on top of a rise gesturing to her. Thinking just maybe she would know were in Thedas she is, she began walking in that direction. She absentmindedly checked the loose, lazy bun she had her red hair in as thoughts began to take over her mind. The main one was how she got here when last she remembered she was making her way through Ferelden to the Temple of Sacred Ashes. Her plan had been to give herself to the Chantry as a sister as atonement. The division in her family had been a result of the circumstances of her birth and therefor her fault. Those circumstances had caused several deaths over her life, including that of her brother just a month prior. So, she fled from Ostwick during the winter riots and made a pilgrimage to the Temple. After her arrival in the middle of the Conclave, everything is either a blur or nothing. Just a black pit of forgetfulness.

Coming to the base of the rise, Aasha paused. The woman above her was gesturing frantically but a sound nearby had caught Aasha’s attention. It was a few moments before she realized that the sound she heard was the skittering of spider’s feet, large ones. With a quick glance behind her at the approaching shadows, Aasha ran up the stair. As she climbed her muscles screamed, but the growing fear caused by the approaching spiders pushed her forward. With another frantic glance back at well over twenty massive spiders, their green eyes glowing a their ugly heads, and their fang like mandibles snapping with audible clack-clack sounds, Aasha reached out just barely touching the glowing green woman’s outstretched hand. Everything went black.

The darkness faded to a shadowy room and she stood in the corner. A tall, redhaired man in templar robes, with bastard sword sheathed on his back, approached her. The feral grin on his face sent a deadly chill down Aasha’s spine. She barely registered that she drew a dagger.

“Jowen Why?” She called to the man in front of her, whose feral grin only deepened as he drew his sword.

“Please, Jowen. You’re my brother!” She said frantically as she raised her left hand to block his swing. His sword fell on her open palm with intense pain and a flash that caused her eyes to fling open.

Another green sparkle and pain brought her eyes down to her left hand, shackled in her lap. As she opened her hand she saw the Mark, a green jagged scar filled with magic sitting squarely in her palm. She realized that the image of her brother had been a dream but as she looked around at the four men with drawn blades surrounding her and the dungeon she was in, she wondered if death at her brother’s hands might have been better. The four guards had her in the middle of the room, her hands bound at the wrist in a chain shackle. Rocking back on the balls of her feet into a kneeling position and checked her captors. The guards tensed but didn't move. She closed her eyes and breathed deeply then opened them with a smirk.

Without warning she lunged, sliding on her bracer and swinging her legs out into the guard on her front right before any of the others could move. As she landed on her feet, the guard that was formerly on her front left swung, she caught his blade in her shackle and landed a kick in his gut. She leaped and spun, simultaneously blocking the low strike from another guard and she landed her greave against the head of the man she just disarmed. Popping back up on her feet she blocked and wrapped her chains around the fourth man’s weapon, kicking him while using his own sword to block another blow aimed at her. Spinning suddenly, she landed a heavy blow to the fourth man's head, knocking him out. Taking his sword, she angled her chain, not to block but so the last man’s own blade would strike a weak point on the link, which broke it. As he swung back, she blocked, and lashed out with her foot, catching the first guard and sending him stumbling, once again stunned. Turning back to the last man, she blocked another blow, blew out his knee with a kick, and landed the pummel of her sword against his temple, disarming him in the process and taking his blade just as the door slammed open.

“What!?” An enraged female voice with a heavy Nevarran accent yelled as the two new combatants drew their weapons. 

Aasha turned to face them. A Seeker? She had fought and beat soldiers considered equal to seekers but had not crossed blades with an actual member of the order. Her companion, however, Aasha instantly recognized the Nightingale. She was going to be a challenge, and she was the only reason Aasha did not smirk this time.

“Drop your weapons!” Cassandra looked around as the Nightingale spoke, wondering how this red headed woman could have gotten free and taken out all four guards.  
Leliana got no response but the dangerous flash of Aasha’s dark eyes.

“We just wanted to talk!” Cassandra practically shouted. “This is not helping your case!”

Still the rogue didn’t move

Finally, Leliana lunged, throwing her knives and drawing two more in one fluid quick motion. Aasha responded.

In the resulting melee, Cassandra found she could not touch the former captive, who easily dodged or blocked her attacks like it was nothing. Rather Embarrassingly, she kept on getting used by Aasha to block Leliana. Finally, Cassandra backed off, not wanting to get another kick to her upper torso that would send her in the spymaster’s way.

“Leliana, we need her!” Cassandra tried to say, but the spymaster continued the frenetic battle, with Aasha fighting them to a standstill. Cassandra, seeing an opening, lunged in. But Aasha blocked, spun, and landed yet another a kick into the back of Cassandra’s head that sent her careening into Leliana, and Aasha was gone in a puff of smoke and through the door they had stupidly left open.

The two women looked at each other and ran down the hall.

Leliana and Cassandra stormed through the Chantry and burst through the doors. Scanning the village and finding no trace of the redhead, Cassandra turned to her companion.

"Go to the forward camp Leliana, I’ll try to find her." Cassandra sighed and stormed off into the village grumbling about idiot headstrong rogues being too skilled for their own good. The last thing Leliana head was a grunt of disgust coming from the direction the seeker took.

\-------

With her invisibility wearing off, Aasha drew on her hood and mask, hiding everything but her vivid eyes. She ignored the pain in her left hand and exited the Chantry. The first thing she spotted was the Breach on her left, which she stared at in awe. So that’s what they wanted to talk to her about, some scar in the sky they blamed her for, she thought. Great. As the wailing and the rumors reach her ear, she decided then and there to do her best to help these people. To at least figure out what she’s up against, she headed to a nearby checkpoint, blending in with the soldiers as much as she could and avoiding the rest.

Aasha avoided the demons and soldiers clashing on the approach to the Temple. She noticed that even the landscape was changed. Impact craters and burned buildings, scorch marks, sickly green and black pools of puss giant pillars of some crystalline stone rather than the structure of the Temple loomed in the mist thrown up by the battle around her. After following the path of a river away from the soldiers, she climbed two flights of stairs up a side of a small cliff, clenching her fist and ignoring the searing pain in her left hand and tears running down her cheeks. She was met by a rift at the top, and a mage and a fellow rogue overwhelmed with demons.

Aasha launched into action. Falling into stealth and drawing her weapons, she ignored the pain of the mark as the cold leather touched her inflamed skin. She fell out of stealth as she leaped and aimed a kick toward a demon attacking the mage, landing the blow on its head and forcing the shade back. Turning to the other shade, she spun, her blades swept in and swept back and the other demon fell with one less arm and without its head. She finished the fluid spin with her right short sword buried in the other shades head.  
She turned to the wide-eyed rogue and instantly recognized him as one of her best friend’s companions, but before either of them could say anything the mage grabbed her hand and thrust it toward the rift. She let out a pained groan as the threads of fade magic between her hand and the rift connected. the mage threw her hand back, breaking the connection and the rift snapped shut with a crack and the sound of shattered glass.

“What did you do?” Aasha looked in wonder at the mage.

“I? Did nothing. The credit is yours.” He answered.

"So, this is useful? I might actually be able to help."

"Well Tiger, that was a good show." The dwarf said as he sheathed his intricate crossbow. "Verric Tethras, rogue, storyteller, and general troublemaker." he winked. "Assuming your wanting to get to the Breach, we'll make sure you get there."

"I’m Solas, if introductions are to be made. Where is Cassandra?"

"Who?"

"The grumpy, gruff, seeker. Likes to take prisoners and drag them across Thedas. You didn’t run into her?" Verric answered her. "She was going to get you."  
“I may have passed her," Aasha shrugged. “What way to this...you call it the Breach?"

Verric looked at her hard a moment before shrugging and nodded.

"This way Tiger." He gestured, and the mage and strange rogue followed.

The three made quick work of the two rifts, gathering several soldiers along the way who got the gate to the next checkpoint open for them. As they entered Aasha spotted Roderick and pulled on her hood and mask once again.

"Your Chancellor Roderick." Verric stated as soon as he stopped at the cleric’s desk.

"The hack writer Cassandra dragged from Kirkwall." Roderick sneered, running his eyes over the mage and rogue that was with him. "And your trying to put together another rag tag team like Hawke’s."

"We need to get to the front." Aasha said before Verric could say anything to the snarky cleric in defense of Hawke.

"We are in a full retreat, no one is going to the front."

"Then I want to assist with the retreat." Aasha spoke before Verric could interject, eyes flashing defiantly. “What is the quickest way to the forward camp? You do have a forward camp, do you not?"

Roderick looked at her hard before finally sighing.

"If you want to commit suicide, so be it." And waved the direction of the quickest way to the camp, through the gate behind him. As Aasha got her ad-hock squad through the gate, she looked back to see Leliana run through the opposite entry and up to Rodrick.

"How did you get the rift closed?"

"Ask the squad that just blew through," and he waved a hand at the direction of the far gate.

Leliana looked over his shoulder and met the sparkling dark eyes of the hooded and mask rogue as the gates shut.

"Was the prisoner with them?"

"No one was bound and chained if that’s what you’re asking. I would have sent them under guard to Val Royeaux." Roderick sneered. "But that meddling dwarf Verric was with them. Where is the seeker."

"She is on her way, Cassandra wants us to march on the breach."

"Absolutely not. That’s suicide!"

\------

“There is more coming though!!” Clement yelled back at Cullen.

Cullen groaned. There had been several waves already. The soldiers here had not expected 15 additional men but even with more numbers, the endless waves of demons were wearing them thin again. And he was not taking lyrium, not anymore. Few knew, but the lack of the magic drug coursing through his veins made this fight that much harder.

“We must hold out, Keep fighting.” He yelled as he passed his sword into a shade, then looked up to see three more charging. He sighed with exhaustion and readied for another bought. Before they could get in range of even a Silence, a cloud of blue smoke appeared out of nowhere. Before the look of confusion had even passed Cullen's face, Aasha, who had taken off her hood and mask, had leaped over the low swing of the right shade to land a kick across the center demon. Landing on her feet she spun and sliced into the left shade then swung her right dagger into the right, killing both in quick succession. Her blades swung out beheading the third demon. She suddenly turned and deftly threw the short sword in her left hand into a terror ready to kill one of Cullen's men. The demons stopped.  
Cullen didn’t notice the spells and arrows fly passed his head, mesmerized as he was by the sudden appearance and gracefully deadly dance of the stunningly beautiful but extremely familiar rogue in front of him. He couldn’t place either her face or her fighting style, familiar as they were, but he would have put good money down with Verric that she could give Leliana a challenge. The shout of the reinforcements brought his mind back to the battle at hand as they mopped up the remaining demons. Solas approached Aasha to say some patronizing thing and she ignored him, instead walking confidently up to Cullen, her piercing violet eyes meeting his. 

‘Oh, look the stuck-up Knight-Captain Cullen form Kirkwall,’ Aasha thought as she approached him. ‘Great just what I need, more hard-ass templars. When did he get so handsome though?’

"I need to get to the Breach." She said to Cullen.

"You’re on its doorstep, but I would strongly advise not going there."

"We are trying to close it, Curly."

"There is no way too..." He stopped talking as Aasha held out her hand, which was flashing with what appeared to be green lightning. With a smirk, she snapped her fist shut, and behind her the rift snapped shut. The soldiers and her companions grinned and some cheered though Cullen could see the pain in her eyes. He also realized just then that this woman in front of him was the rogue prisoner they found at the foot of the Breach, and now he knew that she had the skills to kill him and their men if he tried to restrain her.

"Clement get everybody back." He said before turning back to Aasha. "I’ll take you there."

She nodded her response before pulling on her hood and mask again. Cullen looked at her quizzically before turning and hoping over the small ridge into the Temple Velley. They all followed him, including Aasha’s ad-hoc squad who had no desire to leave the woman and her friends that had rescued them from the demons.  
The flat to the temple was eerie, quiet. The only sound was the crack of the Breach, the gentle sound of flames, and their footsteps echoing around their ears. Or was it other footsteps? Entering the ruined temple itself there were met by another troop of soldiers. And a very angry seeker and spymaster who payed no notice to the masked rogue.

“Verric, Cullen, Solas? What are you doing here?”

“Getting Tiger to the breach.” Verric answered before Cullen could.

“Ugh!” The seeker grunted in disgust.

“Who is tiger?” Leliana asked. 

“Me apparently.” Aasha said pulling off her hood and mask and walking up.

“You!” Leliana hissed venomously, drawing her knives as Cassandra drew her swords. 

“I already fought you both to a standstill, do you want me to do it again or can we try and close this damn thing?”

Cullen, Verric, pretty much everyone present goggled at the rogue, apparently one of the few able to match Leleiana and she did it with the Seeker there too!

“You caused it!” Leliana hissed again. Aasha rolled her eyes. 

“I didn’t. Are we really arguing this now?” Aasha placed her hands in her hips, near two other long bladed daggers she had picked up that she could draw instantly if the two attacked. Again. Though she had to admit the first was warranted. Aasha entered a stare down with the Nightingale. 

“Fine. Then after a trial.” Cassandra was the first to speak and end the standoff between rogue and spymaster, sheathing her sword. “We should remember that even after escaping you came back willingly to help. Lets get you to the Breach. Leliana, have your men take up position around the temple.”

“This is your chance to end this. Are you ready?” Verric asked. 

“Let’s go.” Aasha replied with an impatient sigh.

As they made their way down to the Breach, the rift at its epicenter, a disembodied voice began speaking.

“Now is the hour of our victory, bring forth the sacrifice” the voice rang through the ruins. Aasha found the voice familiar and strained to remember through the blackness.

**Author's Note:**

> aand from here it continues pretty much exactly as the rest of the Sole Survivor.


End file.
